LATTICE WORK.
For lattice work erect a light framework, wind with cloth, and use strips of curtain cloth, white tape or ribbon for lattice. Run all the strips one way before you put in the cross strips, and these should run back of the first, before the next, and so alternating until you have reached the end. The next strip should reverse the order, running before the first.
CHAPTER X.
FIXTURES.
Having erected a proper framework and covered it in an artistic manner, the background is complete, and the decorator next turns to the subject of proper fixtures on which to display his goods.
The writer is a firm believer in good window fixtures, for they assist greatly in making a handsome display, and thus selling goods. Therefore an adequate supply of substantial brass and nickel fixtures is not an extravagance, but a necessity. I said an adequate supply. The big city store needs a great variety of fixtures, for there are many windows to trim. The small store cannot afford more than enough to be used to good advantage.
Side brackets, or arms, must be provided amply, and enough uprights and rods to make whatever racks or trees may be required for small goods. Special display require special fixtures, and where the fixture cannot be entirely covered, a homemade erection would be out of place. When a need arises for a good fixture the expense should not be considered.
From a town of 50,000 inhabitants a merchant writes: “I can no more expect my trimmer to create a good window without proper fixtures than a carpenter to make a good piece of cabinet work without tools. Windows that will attract attention to our goods are necessary; therefore we buy every fixture that is required.” A firm in a town one-half the size of the above, states: “If we were forced to choose between inside fixtures and window fixtures the window fixtures would get them every time. We could sell goods off a dry goods box when once we had brought the people into our store; but without a good window display we fear we could induce very few to enter.”
A general merchant in a town of 5,000 writes: “I never paid any attention to my windows until a year ago, when I instructed one of my clerks who was going to the city, to buy whatever fixtures we might need to trim a window properly. To my horror he purchased nearly $200 worth of fixtures, including a jointed form. I felt like sending the goods back, but, at the clerk’s earnest solicitation, decided to keep them. To-day I would not part with them for double the amount they cost. My windows are talked of all over the country, and my competitors are making frantic efforts to imitate my style of trimming windows.”
Another merchant writes: “I never bought a window fixture that did not prove a good investment.”